Apple Stops Selling 2015 MacBook Pro With Old-Style Keyboard, Legacy Ports (arstechnica.com)

After announcing new MacBook Pro models today, Apple has removed the 2015 MacBook Pro from the Mac section of its website. Ars Technica reports: Beloved by many, the 2015 MacBook Pro had a number of features that have since been changed or have disappeared entirely from new MacBook Pro models. Arguably the most polarizing among these tweaks is the butterfly keyboard -- the 2015 MacBook Pro predates that mechanism, making its traditional keyboard a preferred alternative for many users. The 2015 MacBook Pro also contained legacy ports that Apple has since abandoned in the newest models: USB-A, HDMI, and Thunderbolt 2 ports, and an SD card slot. All of the newest MacBook Pros exclusively feature Thunderbolt 3 ports, which some will appreciate but all will scowl at when they're forced to buy multiple dongles to connect legacy accessories. Currently, Apple has a few 2015 MacBook Pro models listed in its online clearance section, but it's likely that Apple will not have more to sell after those are gone.

Comments

Courageous

[cinghiale]

It's courageous of them to stop selling products for which there is continuing demand.

Re:Courageous

[ilsaloving]

Damned straight there was demand. Their 2015 unit was the last one that was actually suitable for general use. Whenever we needed to get a MBP, that's what I would buy. I bought one 2016 model and the person was seriously unimpressed with it.

In fact, I don't know one single person that is actually happy with the 2016+ models. One person I know bought one, and then sold it again 3 months later cause they couldn't stand it anymore.

The lack of useful ports is infuriating. Whoever came up with that idiotic keyboard design should be tarred, feathered, and shot. These machines are now completely unupgradable, forcing you to max out your purchase up front since it's hard to predict what your usage will be like 3 years down the road. The battery is not only not replaceable, but it's not even serviceable outside of a factory anymore so if you need your battery replaced you're out a laptop for several weeks.

Apple's lineup has become f__king brain damaged right across the board and, as another poster has already said, Apple now produces not one single product that I would want to buy.

The only reason Apple is even a viable option is cause Microsoft has turned Windows 10 into a complete shitshow. At least with Apple, I can actually control when updates occur AND be reasonably confident that an update won't brick my machine.

Those aren't legacy ports

[Anonymous Coward]

They are "current" ports.
USB-C ports are "ports of the future."

Now, VGA video would be a "legacy" port.

Re: Those aren't legacy ports

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it doesn't have DRM bullshit. It's analog and it WORKS.

The first time you watch a meeting get delayed because someone's laptop and the projector refuse to get along, you'll understand why VGA is still necessary.

Comfortable keyboards are for chumps

[yuriklastalov]

How long until the keyboard is just a giant touch pad with courageous gestures to enter text?

All text entry will be done with swiping. You'll thank us later.

Re:Comfortable keyboards are for chumps

[Solandri]

The Onion beat you to that punchline almost a decade ago.

MacBook Pro mid-2015 here

[AlanObject]

I for one welcome our new USB-C overlords.

Re:Floppy drives and 25 pin parallel ports

[Northdot]

Are you from the future where all your daily-usage peripherals have USB-C connectors?

I wonder why

[ruddk]

I wonder why Tim Cook is so crazy about dongles.

Re:I wonder why

[93 Escort Wagon]

I wonder why Tim Cook is so crazy about dongles.

There's a joke there which I am fighting not to make...

MacBook is becoming a big iPad. The Maxipad

[raymorris]

They way they are going, the MacBook Pro will soon just be a really big iPad. The Max iPad, or Maxipad.

Re:Floppy drives and 25 pin parallel ports

[blindseer]

well they'd go well with having a not shit keyboard and ports that most people still use.

People have been predicting Apple would go out of business since 1984. They've survived this long and with much bigger mistakes, they'll be fine.

I remember when apple dropped the floppy drive way back when. Everyone I knew who had a mac bought an external floppy drive because apple mindlessly dropped it before there was actually a replacement.

There was a replacement, CD-RW. A CD-RW drive was standard equipment on all Apple computers of the era except the lowest end iMac desktops. Also at the time I remember floppy disks being notoriously unreliable and too small to store the growing size of files. A floppy drive was fine for text, simple HTML, and such but worthless for people that were wanting to play MP3 files, move PDFs, and so on. At the time there was a lot of competition for floppy replacements and choosing anything as a replacement at the time would most likely result in failure. It was perhaps quite wise to leave the choice to the user to buy as a peripheral.

What competed with floppy? There's the CD-RW I mentioned, it stored a lot but was slow and awkward at first, and still kind of expensive. Zip drives were doing well, at 100MB each, fast, and (IIRC) about $10 per disc. There was the "floptical", a magnetic/optical hybrid that was backward compatible with floppies in that it could read and write floppies in the same drive. There was the MO drive, or magneto-optical, which as I recall worked similarly to the floptical but confusingly came in multiple incompatible sizes/formats. PD, phase-writer dual, which was similar to and somewhat backward compatible with CD-ROM. There was the big brother to Zip, Jazz, a drive that had 1GB, and later on 2GB, cartridges. There was the Mini-disc, which started as a purely audio storage media but moved into data storage. I'm sure I'm missing a few.

Two things were clear at the time, the floppy was essentially already dead as a usable storage media, and what would ultimately replace it was unclear.

Most people I knew got Zip drives. The place I worked at the time used MO. What signaled the end of the floppy to me was coming to work and finding a CD-R in my mailbox with a note that I was to do something with the file on the disc. I don't remember what I was to do with the file only that I was confused to put the CD-R in my computer and find only a single 2MB file. I went to the author of the note to ask if there was supposed to be more than a single 2MB file on a disc that could store 700MB. He told me he tried putting it on a floppy but it wouldn't fit. He thought he might put it on a MO disc but he knew my computer didn't have a MO drive. All else failing he burned it to a CD-R (which were still kind of expensive at the time) for me to work on because he knew all the computers in the department had a CD-ROM drive.

I mentioned CD-RW as the replacement for floppy because hindsight is 20/20. At the time the choices weren't so clear.

And on the flip side

[sit1963nz]

Apple now has nothing I want to buy.

I have been a Mac user since the 1980's. My 2011MBP has died, I went looking and came away with the realisation that Apple does not produce anything that I would pay for, nothing!

Sorry Apple, I want Ethernet, USB-A, Audio, Thunderbolt 2 as well as 3, I want an SD card reader, I want a real keyboard with no wank bar at the top, I want a Mag-safe connector. I want to be able to upgrade the RAM myself, as well as the SSD storage, I have no intention of paying your "retail + 200%" prices.

I want better battery life, do I care if it will be thicker than last years model...hell no, that would actually be appreciated as the extra weight means it will not feel like its about to flip over on its back

Will it happen, I doubt it. Apple is like a teenager, so bloody busy looking at their small screen they can not see or hear what is happening around them.

So... the next mission is to figure out what a reasonable laptop with Linux on it will be....

And for all the Mac developers I had bought software off over the last 30+ years.... cheers, thanks, but I have to leave now.

Re:And on the flip side

[vux984]

Yup. This. My 2011 mbp got handed down, and i've got a 2015 mbp now. I miss the ethernet, but its overall been a decent unit.

But im not seeing anything from apple i'd buy as a replacement. Its just useless garbage.

Perhaps ironically, the surface laptop from microsoft is looking pretty good these days; and a number of my peers are getting those now.

I've also had a couple standing offers on my 2015 mbp whenever i let it go; not because these people can't afford a new one, but because they don't want apple's latest nonsense but still want a newer apple than what they have now.

Now, with hyper-v, docker, and microsoft's linux subsystem for windows all becoming very usable, windows10 for all its flaws is just as easy, to run *nix stuff and connect to *nix stuff eroding one of apples big draws for me, and with apple talking about rolling out their own CPU... they're actively running away from where I'm interested in going.

Re:And on the flip side

[Parker Lewis]

I prefer the Precision line, the 15" ones. They are thin, but with upgradable parts.

USB-other-than-C is not legacy

[MichaelJ]

In the last year I've bought several new devices with USB connectors. In all cases the computer-end of the included cable was USB-A, and in all but one case (the GoPro) the device end was micro USB-B. These are not only currently shipping products, but one of them is brand-new to the market two months ago. I *might* have considered one of these MacBook Pros to replace my 2012 11" MacBook (an excellent form factor for travel but a lousy screen resolution for FCPX or Lightroom) if they'd gone back to a decent keyboard, but I'm not going to use something where I can't even tell if the keystroke registered or not. And no, I don't want haptic feedback, I want key travel.